The goal is to make five virtual plants work correctly by using an external (and real) controller. The programming is focused on typical industrial applications of programmable logic controllers (PLC): sorting, batching, palletizing, pick and place and automated storage and retrieval systems. The idea is to let students see a PLC in its typical industrial environment and fully understand and program common control tasks. This is impossible to get if a PLC is simply wired to a few lamps and switches as commonly found in school labs due to cost, space and safety constraints.
Each system is a complete emulation of an industrial system including virtual sensors and actuators. The sensors and actuators data is exchanged between the PLC and the virtual system by a data acquisition board (DAQ) with 32 I/O isolated channels and USB interface.